Noel John Christopher Harrison (29 January 1934 – 19 October 2013) was an English actor and singer who had a hit singing "The Windmills of Your Mind" in 1968, and was a member of the British Olympic skiing team in the 1950s. He was the son of the actor Rex Harrison.
Harrison was born on 29 January 1934 in Kensington, London. His mother, Ethel Margery Noel Collette-Thomas, was the first of Rex Harrison's six wives; they divorced in 1942. Ethel and her cousin Richard Michael Collette Thomas (later a Lieutenant-Colonel killed in action, 1944, in France) were brought up together by their grandparents, Major John Cyril Collette-Thomas & Jessie Maud Scott-Brown, in Bude, North Cornwall. As a child he attended Sunningdale School, where his father was also a pupil. When he was 15, Ethel took young Noel out of school at Radley to live in the Swiss Alps.
Harrison never returned to school and began ski-racing. He joined the Ipswich repertory theatre group and taught himself guitar, but his main interest and most of his spare time was spent skiing. At an early age he was a member of the British ski team, becoming its first giant-slalom champion in 1953, and representing Great Britain at the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo, Norway, and at the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.

Return to Noel Harrison Autograph Profile